Various arrangements for dental, medical or other instrument consoles and treatment chair apparatus have heretofore been provided, such as the extremely commerically successful behind-the-patient dental console described and illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,524,256, issued Aug. 18, 1970, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, along with other arrangements of dental consoles beside and in front of the patient. With those dental consoles which are positioned beside or in front of the patient, often overhanging portions are mounted for movement to and from an over-the-patient position.
With the advent of electrically operated dental chairs which raise and lower automatically by operation of the dentist or dental assistant to position the patient at desired elevations and at desired reclining positions, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,804,460, issued Apr. 16, 1974, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, these previously proposed over-the-patient or beside-the-patient instrument consoles have caused problems with either interference in raising and lowering of the patient by the automatically operated dental chair or with being positioned at proper elevations for use by the dentist and dental assistant.
Examples of such previously proposed dental, medical or other treatment instrument consoles may be seen in the following prior patents considered with respect to the present invention:
______________________________________ Patent No. Inventor Issue Date ______________________________________ 3,262,735 E. O. Thompson July 26, 1966 3,311,411 R. W. Page et al March 28, 1967 3,418,714 H. Pietschmann December 31, 1968 3,568,317 M. L. Braun et al March 9, 1971 3,662,465 E. Heubeck May 16, 1972 3,771,226 N. H. Lieb et al November 13, 1973 3,823,475 E. Heubeck July 16, 1974 3,902,246 H. M. Wolf et al September 2, 1975 ______________________________________